More and more student trajectories involve an academic stay abroad. To achieve the intercultural, personal or linguistic objectives associated with such placements, social inclusion with peers and faculty in the place of study is needed. This paper applies Bourdieu’s theory of capital as a conceptual framework to examine the experiences of students who have competed a placement abroad, in particular students from educationally disadvantaged families, students with disabilities, and migrant students. Longitudinal data were taken from the German National Education Panel Study (NEPS) with N=8.469 students. The findings show the interrelatedness of social inclusion and a placement abroad: students who experience high social inclusion with peers and faculty at the beginning of their studies are more likely to study abroad. Social capital with faculty increases after such a placement, in particular for at-risk student groups, while no difference in the increase in social inclusion is observed between student groups. The findings imply a need for early interventions as some of the effects already take place in the first semester.

There has been a clear shift in higher education to prepare and empower the current students for a future quite different and more complex than that faced by previous generations. In particular, it is expected that they will possess comprehensive abilities to deal with challenges arising from new employment demands and beyond. While liberal arts education has a long history in the West, it has been increasingly implemented more recently in East Asia as one response to the need for educational reform. The research reported here is an empirical study of how liberal arts education has affected individuals from two institutions with distinctive interpretations of “liberal arts education” - University N, the first Sino-foreign joint university in mainland China, and University L, the only public liberal arts university in Hong Kong. Drawing on Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice, this study illustrates the interplay and balance among students’ practical concerns, their sense of social obligation fostered through liberal arts education elements and the wider social structure. Semi-structured interviews with senior students, fresh graduates, and educators were conducted to gather in-depth primary data. These reveal that, by providing interdisciplinary knowledge and transferable skill sets, a liberal arts education experience does enhance individuals’ personal agency and intellectual competencies in a professional context - they are trained to become independent thinkers and learners. Moreover, the “humanistic” aspect of liberal arts is also relevant: having engaged in various activities and programs, students in both universities are encouraged to care, cooperate, and make positive differences in their increasingly interconnected communities.